Haldol and Hyacinths

May 27, 2013
“Perhaps insanity is inescapable when you separate a soul from its vessel,” muses Iranian-American activist, author, and lawyer Moezzi (War on Error) in her strangely affecting chronicle of living with bipolar disorder. She attributes her affliction to a variety of factors—cultural vertigo, post-9/11 prejudice against Muslims, a rare pancreatic disorder, overwhelming family pressure—and over the years has attempted suicide and suffered from a full-blown manic episode, as well as psychotic breaks. To recreate the gaps in her memory during these traumatic periods, she relies on recollections of friends and family, and her husband’s detailed notes. Some readers may not embrace Moezzi’s bad-girl persona—she stages rebellions in hospital wards and offers strong opinions on a range of subjects—but her vivid descriptions of being pulled against her will in a swirl of impulsivity, hallucinations, and paranoia are riveting. She also uses offbeat humor to criticize the medical profession’s handling of the mentally ill. Her often black-and-white thinking is mercifully softened by abundant gratitude for the saintly patience of her husband, the practicality of her mother, and the wisdom of her Rumi-quoting father. A poetic portrait of life on the lines of sanity and a mind on the edge of cultures. Agent: Ayesha Pande, Ayesha Pande Literary.

June 1, 2013
An Iranian-American political activist and writer's memoir of how she came to terms with her bicultural heritage and bipolar disorder. When Huffington Post and Ms. blogger Moezzi was born in the United States in 1979, her fate was sealed--at least, according to theocrats who took over the country her Iranian doctor parents left behind. "I was both Westoxified (in the Ayatollah's words) and highly inclined to lose my mind," she writes. Unlike the children of those parents who stayed in Iran, Moezzi grew up affluent and surrounded by a huge extended family of other Persian exiles. But at 18, when her "westoxified" body rebelled against her for two years, Moezzi was forced to deal with both a life-threatening case of pancreatitis and what appeared to be a case of depression. Surgery seemed to cure her of both ailments, and her life resumed its charmed course. Moezzi traveled to Montana to spend a joyful summer ("I was sure that if God lived anywhere, it had to be Montana") reconnecting with her Muslim faith, unaware that her euphoria was a manifestation of mania. She graduated from college and went to law school, where she developed an interest in the politics of Islam and also attempted suicide. Moezzi's battles with her "mutinous mind" were far from over, however. While campaigning for Barack Obama in 2008, she experienced an even more severe mental breakdown that stemmed from full-blown mania. The author's candor about her experiences in and with the medical establishment is bracing. Physical illness elicits sympathy, cards and flowers; however, she writes, "if you have mental illness, you get plastic utensils, isolation and fear." Yet Moezzi knows that she has been lucky. Life in Iran--and possibly in and out of the Iranian jails that make "American psychiatric hospitals look idyllic"--would have been far worse. A bold, courageous book by a woman who transforms mental illness into an occasion for activism.

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March 15, 2013

A Ms. and Huffington Post blogger, NPR commentator, and blogger/columnist for Bipolar Magazine, plus author of the praised War on Error, Iranian American Muslim activist and attorney Moezzi has a built-in readership for this memoir about her battles with clinical and cultural bipolarity.

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